Black Identity and Racism Collide in Brazil

Neymar of Brazil dribbles past Ivan Perisic of Croatia in the first
half during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Group A match between Brazil
and Croatia at Arena de Sao Paulo June 12, 2014, in Sao Paulo.

Buda Mendes/Getty Images

Before teams
representing their countries from around the world arrived in Brazil,
the country’s president, Dilma Rousseff, took the opportunity to label
2014 the “anti-racism World Cup.”

The declaration came after a wave of racist incidents
in soccer around the world targeting black players, many of whom are
Brazilian. While it’s a well-intentioned gesture and a particularly
important one for a World Cup being hosted in the country that’s home to
the largest population of people of African descent outside of Africa,
Brazil has a complex past and present when it comes to race.

That complexity can perhaps best be illustrated by the fact that many
black Brazilians don’t think of themselves as black. Brazilian soccer
star Neymar is a great example. Asked during an interview in 2010 if he
had ever experienced racism, his response was, “Never.” He added, “Not
inside nor outside of the soccer field. Even more because I'm not black,
right?”

This denial of blackness may seem confusing to many Americans,
because despite his long, straightened and occasionally blond hair,
Neymar is clearly black. (Take a look at a picture of young Neymar with his family.) But for Brazilians, being black is very different from what it is in the United States.

“The darker a person is in Brazil, the more racism she or he is going
to suffer. Light-skinned black people don’t identify as black most of
the time,” says Daniela Gomes, a black Brazilian activist who is
currently pursuing a doctorate in African Diaspora studies at the
University of Texas. “A lot of people choose to deny their blackness.
They don’t believe they are black, but they suffer racism without
knowing why.”

Gomes calls it a “brainwash” that Brazilians go through in a country
that likes to hold itself up as a model for racial harmony. But she also
points to differences in the histories of the United States and Brazil.
“We never had segregation, we never had the one-drop rule, we never had
those kinds of things that are so normal for an African American,” she
said. “What happened in Brazil was the opposite.”

Integration and miscegenation were actually government policy in
Brazil. Around the time that slaves were freed, in 1888, the government
sought to whiten its population through the importation of European
immigrants. This idea was made law by Decree 528 in 1890 and opened the
country’s borders to foreign immigrants, except for those from Africa
and Asia.

The goal of this immigration effort was depicted in an 1895 painting by Brazilian artist Modesto Brocos known as The Redemption of Ham, which
features a black grandmother, mixed-race mother, white father and white
baby. The grandmother stands to the left with her hands raised in
prayer, praising God that her grandson is white. This, says Brazilian
entrepreneur and activist Carlos Alberto David, is the “final point” of
racism in Brazil.

“Racism in Brazil is very sophisticated and structured,” says David.
“The racism here is not physical. It works on people psychologically.”

Neymar, whose son looks very similar to the grandson in The Redemption of Ham, seems
to have had quite a different experience in the four years since saying
that he wasn’t black. The star forward has been subjected to monkey
noises made by his own teammates, had multiple bananas thrown at him
during international matches and even confronted an opposing coach he
thought called him a monkey during a game.

That harassment may have been at the heart of a campaign he started after fellow Brazilian team member Dani Alves had a banana thrown at him by
fans during a match in Spain. Rather than protest, Alves picked up the
banana, peeled it and ate it, then continued playing. Later, Neymar
posted a photo to Instagram of himself and his son holding bananas with the slogan, “Somos todos macacos” (“We are all monkeys”).

The campaign took off in Brazil, with many of the country’s notable
artists and personalities also tweeting photos of themselves with
bananas. But many in the country protested the movement, citing it as a
trivialization of a very serious problem in soccer and in society.

“The comparison between blacks and monkeys is racist in its essence,”
wrote Brazilian activist and history professor Douglas Belchior on
his NegroBelchior blog. “However, many people don’t understand the
seriousness of using the monkey as an offense, as an insult to black
people.”

This can be a particularly complex issue in a country full of people
whom outsiders see as black but who don’t think of themselves as such.
That divide is evidenced by growing monkey taunts of black players and
officials in Brazil.

In March, Brazilian midfielder Marcos Arouca da Silva was called a
monkey during a postgame interview, an event that he said wasn’t an
isolated incident. Brazilian referee Marcio Chagas da Silva says he’s
been subjected to more than 200 racially based attacks during his career
refereeing matches in the country. During a recent game between
Brazilian clubs Esportivo and Veranopolis, fans reportedly yelled at him
from the stands, “You belong in a circus. Go back to the forest, you
monkey.”

Such events are what led Rousseff, along with FIFA, to push for this
year’s World Cup to become “a global marker against racism.” Before the
start of the World Cup, Brazil’s soccer federation also commenced a
campaign against racism that is less controversial than Neymar’s, called
“Somos iguais,” or “We are equal.”

As the World Cup moves forward and more fans see their teams bounced
from the tournament by teams led by star black players like Italy’s
Mario Balotelli, Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o, Belgium’s Vincent Kompany,
France’s Paul Pogba and others, Brazil’s hopes for a global marker
against racism may be tested.

They don't even show the favelas on tv, there is a chance to raise awareness about racism in every aspect like in their own society and about why certain people have to endure it.

This picture got to me, even though his back his turned, he is probably black. You can't tell the world not to be racist when your own society is racist and full of obstacles preventing certain people from advancing. You can't be black only when you want to be.

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